


AM/B2

by readinginthecave_ao3



Category: the Queen's Gambit
Genre: Angst, Arctic Monkeys - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, POV Benny Watts, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28691361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readinginthecave_ao3/pseuds/readinginthecave_ao3
Summary: Each chapter is a song from the album AM by the Arctic Monkeys.Beth comes back to New York and tries to get with Benny again
Relationships: Arthur Levertov (mentioned), Beth Harmon & Jolene & Benny Watts, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Cleo & Benny Watts, Danny Weiss (mentioned), Hilton Wexler (mentioned)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 88





	1. Do I Wanna Know?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone, this is the first fanfic I ever actually post online. I'd love to hear your feedback!

It was a couple of weeks after Beth’s win in Russia and Benny was still thinking about her. He had seen her once since, when her flight landed in NYC before she went on to Kentucky again.  
They had just behaved like friends, hugging, but not kissing and it hadn’t been as uncomfortable as the conversations they had had prior. She had thanked him sincerely and there wasn’t really any bad blood. But since then he had thought about the night after she beat him at speed chess and the weeks after more than he cared to admit. He lay in bed wide awake at night thinking about those following nights, the taste of her lips and the smell of her perfume. He really couldn’t have missed her more. He longed for her. He longed to just to get to see her, he was at a point where it didn’t really matter if she wanted him back because he would pine for her eternally anyway. He couldn’t wait to just see her face again. He imagined all the dates they could go on and the sweet couple moments they could have if he just figured out how to get her back. He thought about her body, her lips, he couldn’t stop dreaming about her wherever he went and whatever he saw. There was always the dominating wish to just get her back somehow, even if it was just for a day and it left a big scar, he just had to hug her again. Feel her curves, hold her. In the evenings, he would listen to Peggy Lee and one tune in particular made him somehow think of Beth.

Never know how much I love you  
Never know how much I care  
When you put your arms around me  
I get a fever that's so hard to bear  
You give me fever when you kiss me  
Fever when you hold me tight  
Fever in the morning  
Fever all through the night 

It was just too accurate for him not to think about her when he heard it. He also had a single for Stop Your Sobbing by The Kinks, but even though it reminded him of the car ride they took before he started training her, he found the lyrics a bit apathetic, plus he was too lazy to change the records, so he just listened to Things Are Swingin’ a bunch.  
He was insecure about the music. He didn’t think Beth was as invested in this all as he was. He just couldn’t know if this feeling flowed both ways. There was always the possibility of her being in a relationship he didn’t know about. Or having just come out of one and not being ready. Or plainly, not liking him back.

The more excited he was when in one of their casual, platonic, no ulterior motives, just keeping up with a good friend really, phone calls she revealed she had apparently had at least some of the same thoughts.  
“I’ve been thinking about you, Benny,” she admitted. “About us, about those weeks before Paris... I’m just gonna be honest about it and say that I miss it. How we were then. It was nice.” He felt his cheeks getting hotter as she said it.  
“You can come here if you want. Please do. We’ll continue right where we left off...before Paris. We can talk it out another time, just please come,” was his overly urging answer; He just really wanted her to come.  
And come she did. She took the next flight, the afternoon of the following day. When she arrived, she immediately fell into Benny’s arms, he was too desperate to kiss her to wait, so it just happened at the airport, right then and there. She let her suitcase fall to their feet and when they’re lips touched, for a short moment he felt transported back to the year prior.  
It felt good. Even better than he remembered. He was over the moon to have her back. To have her just to himself for at least the next few days. He was enjoying walking beside her and holding her hand way too much. But when a paparazzo appeared from a side street as they were stepping out of the airport, Beth let go of his hand. As they walked along the streets, even more of them appeared. Benny noticed how she lost some of the ease she had had only a minute ago. She pulled her shoulders higher and picked up some speed. He could imagine what her last weeks must have been like, being followed by someone with a camera wherever she went. When they started coming nearer and yelling questions like: “Why are you meeting up? Are you in a relationship?” or “Is it true that you had Vodka in your water glass during the games?”, she grabbed his arm and he tried his best to protect her from the cameras. They somehow made it to his apartment by running and taking some smart detours to bypass getting even more attention on the more crowded roads. He let her go down the stairs first and followed close behind.

As they were sitting down playing chess a few hours later, Benny couldn’t stop smiling to himself because he was so happy when he looked at her. She looked even better than in those weeks. She just glowed since her win. She drove him crazy when she talked. There was really no better position he could imagine himself being in than across from Beth, between them only the chess board in the dim light of his apartment. Except a certain position in his bedroom of course, but he wasn’t thinking of that yet.  
“So, what exactly have you been doing in Kentucky alone in the house?” he asked.  
“Well, the first thing I did after giving all those interviews was to pay Jolene back her money of course.” When he looked a bit confused, she explained: “Jolene, my friend from the orphanage I was at. She gave it to me after I had declined the Christian Crusade money and you didn’t wanna come. Then I threw away all that alcohol I still had stored in the cupboards and all. After that I just kind of relaxed and enjoyed my free-time. The first in a long time without drinking. It was weird being alone. You know, truly alone, without the alcohol or pills to accompany me or a match to think about. Just alone. I went shopping and really cooked for the first time. It was-”  
“Pills?” Benny interrupted her.  
“Yes, I’ve taken them on and off since I was nine. Tranquillisers. I used to take them before games to dull my mind to just focus on the board,” she answered as if it wasn’t a big deal. And to her it maybe wasn’t any more. He was shocked though:  
“Since you were nine?!”  
“They forced us to at the orphanage, vitamins they called them. I couldn’t really get off the habit afterwards. I stole them from my mother when they were prescribed to her.”After seeing the look on his face, she added: “Don’t worry, they’re all gone now, flushed down the toilet. And I’ve realised I don’t need them to win. Now, please, would you make your move, Benny?”  
Still stunned, he looked down at the board again and moved his rook. They played on in silence.  
When Beth had beat him the third time in a row, she suggested making dinner since the sun had gone down for at least an hour. The first thing they did after getting up, though, was to fall back into each other’s arms and kiss. He relished every moment of it, his hands feeling their way around the curve of her back and staying right there at her waist, when she pulled away, still holding onto him and sending a bright smile to him.  
“I did miss you a fucking lot, Benny.”  
“Me too, Beth, me too,” he answered before they went back to kissing.

After they had somehow pulled apart, they had a humble dinner of omelet and toast. He hadn’t really thought of getting something better before. It was still nice, though, everything was nice with her. Needless to say, their clothes didn’t stay on for long into the night and all of it felt just as good as that first time when their friends had come around.  
The next morning he woke up to her, still intertwined with him, breathing calmly and with a steady rhythm, wearing nothing but one of his floral robes. Since he didn’t want to wake her up, he just stayed there, admiring how the sunlight bounced off of her features. Everything about her was beautiful and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was crazy to even think, but maybe he actually loved her.


	2. R U Mine?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny starts getting doubts about how serious their relationship is to Beth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still mostly fluff, but if you know anything about the lyrics of this album, you can guess that you should probably enjoy it while it lasts! I posted the first two chapters today and I will try to post more as often as I can, maybe one chapter a week

When she had woken up, Beth walked around in one of Benny’s floral robes. After breakfast, they of course played chess. They talked about the moves she had made after that one by Borgov that they hadn’t thought of before he played it.  
“That was impressive, you know. How you thought about it for a bit and then just did that,” Benny was saying. He couldn’t stop stealing looks at her when she was analysing the board and didn’t notice.  
“Yeah, I was proud of myself, too.”  
Benny grinned. “You’ve stayed as humble as ever, huh?”  
“I just won the world championship, Benny. And besides, who are you to talk about humility?” she scoffed.  
“Fair point, Harmon, fair point.” He lifted his gaze from the board between them to her eyes again. “So, what are we gonna do, now, that we don’t have anything to train for?”  
“I don’t know. You’re the one who knows about what is good around here. I’ll come with you to anything as long as there aren’t too many people, photographers or ways to embarrass myself.”   
“How about a drive-in movie?” he said after thinking about it a bit.  
Beth eyes widened. “Have I told you that story before?”  
“What story?”  
“About drive-in movies?”  
“No, you haven’t.” He was intrigued. Every new detail he could get about Beth’s life he took with delight and admiration. There wasn’t a nitty-gritty he didn’t want to know about, but he knew she wasn’t willing to give it all up at once or even give him all the information he desired over time. He battled with himself not to get frustrated sometimes, when she didn’t give up to him enough.  
“Okay, so you know in Mexico, when I played that fourteen-year-old Russian boy?”  
“Read about it, yeah. Georgi Girev, his name was, right?” He had read every article ever published about her in the time after Paris, from when she was fifteen to her latest win. He hid them all in a drawer in his bedside table.  
“Might’ve been, don’t remember.” She shrugged carelessly. “Do you know what he said to me after we’d adjourned? If it was true that in America there are cinemas where you watch in your car,” she chuckled.  
“Huh, guess they don’t have them in the Soviet Union… Is that a no on drive-in movie theatre?”  
“Depends what they’re showing.”  
He picked up the local newspaper he had only bought because it had Beth’s face on. When he’d flipped to the page with the movie programme for the week, he started reading: “Funny Girl, today at seven-thirty…”   
“Too much singing probably,” Beth objected.   
“Well, there’s also…” “Why do we have to do something, anyway?” she asked. “Can’t we just stay here, play chess,... do anything, but go out?”  
Benny was surprised at this. “I thought you’d get bored here, to be honest.” He was insecure about whether she really wanted him back as much as he did and so he had tried to get out of having to address it.  
“Not as long as you’re here” It didn’t sound genuine. He rationalised it by thinking that maybe she just had a hard time expressing her feelings like he did.  
“Well, I am flattered by that, Beth,” he said with a grin on his face.  
She didn’t smile back, just stated matter-of-factly that: “Excepting Borgov, you’re the most challenging player to face.”  
He noticed that something was wrong by how seriously and dryly Beth had answered his more jokingly meant remark. But he knew he couldn’t give ‘You didn’t complement me even more.’ as a reason for thinking that something wasn’t quite right with her. So, he just set up the board and they played.  
She behaved more normally when playing chess. He knew that she had always felt most herself in that world of sixty-four squares. She even let him take her hand again, while they played with the other. It felt uncommonly comfortable.

After hours of them playing, Beth said: “I’m hungry.”  
“Well, what do you want to eat? I need to buy some food anyway, so we’re not constrained to what’s in the fridge right now.”  
“Will you go shopping on your own?” she asked, not answering his question.  
“Do you want me to?”  
“I don’t know… Yes, I do want you to. I’m just not feeling up to it.”  
“Okay, I’ll go.” He figured she was probably just tired or lazy or both. “Any wishes foodwise?”  
She lifted her head to meet his eyes as a grin appeared on her lips. “Eggs,” she said.  
“Stayed the same all this time, have you?” he answered, laughing. “And any actual meals?”  
“I don’t wanna have to think about that, Benny. I’m not picky, just make what you want.” Apparently, she was more tired than he had thought.  
He left the apartment, thinking about the food options they had for the next few days. 

When he re-entered, with two big paper bags filled with food in his hands and a magazine tucked under his right elbow, keys in the pocket of his leather duster, kicking the door shut with his foot, Beth was still sitting there with a blank stare, looking at the board. Not studying the position, probably just thinking.  
“Hey.” She walked up to him, took one of the paper bags and carried it to the kitchen counter. He watched her curiously, as she started opening all the cabinets, analysing what was stored in each of them. After maybe five minutes, she turned around defeatedly and said: “Since I don’t seem to be figuring it out myself, what is your system?”  
“Uh, sorry?” That wasn’t what he had been expecting.  
“Your system. How do you categorize everything? What category belongs in what place? Which side of the packaging do you like to be visible when you open it?”  
“Um, I don’t really have a system for that. I just try to remember what goes in the fridge and what doesn’t and then I put the things where they fit.”  
“Huh.” She seemed to be pondering that.  
Then she asked which items he needed to cook for today and left them on the counter as she started taking everything out of the bags and lining it up neatly with the things already in there, straightening up boxes and lining up edges as she went.  
Every item she took out the bags she would ask the proper place for, but after realising that she would only get: “Wherever, really” as an answer she stopped after the first ten things. She was clearly implementing a system to her own accord, but he didn’t mind. It would be the first time any of his things would actually be sorted in there and not just randomly thrown in. When she was done, she expertly examined her work and gave him a tour of his cupboards as they were sorted with the new system.  
“So, this is where potatoes and onions go, so that can be your smell-intense compartment where you could also put garlic cloves if you need them. You don’t want your fruit with that, especially not apples, so they’re right here,” she said, opening another cabinet, “although there’s still space for plenty of other stuff. The vegetables of course go in the lowest compartment of the fridge. Dried pasta and cereal is here, since the boxes line up. Tins go right under here and if they pile up, you can put them there, too.”  
It was a long monologue before she was done explaining. “Thank you,” Benny said, planting a kiss on her temple from behind, “for this. I’ll try not to mess it up, Beth.”  
She answered with a laugh and another peck on the cheek: “I will be patrolling these cupboards every day when I’m here from now on.”


	3. One For The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny is a dumbass and fucks everything up

During dinner, Benny pointed at the magazine he had brought and told Beth:  
“Page 6, there’s a good picture of us from yesterday. Look at it.”

He could see her tensing up just a little bit, before see answered nonchalantly:  
“Let’s see what they’ve done this time…” She opened the magazine to said page six and let out a gasp. Now, she really wasn’t nonchalant any more.

“Queen and King of Chess caught leaving airport together holding hands,” she read the title. “Last night, the former US champion of chess, Benny Watts, and Beth Harmon, who has just beaten the world champion Vasily Borgov, left JFK airport in New York together. Since Benny Watts is known to live in The Big Apple we can only assume she went to his apartment directly after her win in Moscow. There have been dating rumours about the two since last year, when Watts trained Harmon for a game against the same Borgov in Paris, which she lost. At the time it was revealed that they were staying together at his apartment during the training period. Since then, their appearances in each other’s company seem to have gotten more infrequent. It is still reported however they are friends and have stayed in contact since the coaching. Now, pictures have appeared of them clearly holding hands as they were seen walking through the streets of New York. So, the question that everyone is asking is whether there is more between the two prodigies.”

“Oops, we’re caught,” Benny laughed, looking down at the photograph of him carrying her suitcases while she’s clutching his arm with a frown.  
“Benny,” Beth said annoyed.  
“What? It’s funny!”

“No, it fucking isn’t! I know that’s not gonna happen to you because you have a penis, but do you know what I’m gonna be asked in every single fucking interview from now on? Are you dating Benny Watts? What’s going on between you two? And more of the same shit. This has ruined all the media coverage on my win, Benny. They’re just gonna be talking about Benny fucking Watts again. Benny here, Benny there. Does he like my dresses? Is he sure that he wants his future wife to be smarter than him? Is he still mad at me for taking the US champion title from him? Are we travelling to the tournaments together? Do we stay in the same hotel room? Did he like my hair better when is was shorter or does he like it now? - Do you know how much shit they’re gonna give me about this?!”

“Okay, Beth, chill. It’s just a picture,” Benny tried to calm her. “Besides, they’re not wrong.”

“Fuck you, Benny, you know just as well as I do what the media likes to torture me with. And on top of that: I don’t wanna reveal anything yet. There isn’t much point. The questions are only gonna get more if I give them what they want. And we both know I don’t need more questions about inappropriate topics that men would never be asked about.” She was really getting worked up on this now.

“So what, give them what they ask for. Tell them what they wanna hear, sprinkle in stupid details about whatever. It can’t be that hard.”  
That’s when she got up and left the table. “You just don’t understand that shit, Benny.” 

“Now, Beth, I truly don’t,” he answered with a contemptuous smile still on his lips. He didn’t know what was wrong with her. The media loved her even more than they did him. Besides, Beth loved the attention just as much as he did.

She just sat down at the couch that had been the newest addition to the apartment and started reading some sort of chess book, still with an angry pout.

Benny started trying to make sense of it. He knew that the media was sexist, but surely it couldn’t be much more annoying for her than for him to be portrayed as a couple. After all, they were, weren’t they? 

That’s when it dawned on Benny. She just didn’t like him back as much. She didn’t really want anything serious with him. She had just wanted to come back and get sex again like the first time. He was angry with himself now. How had he let her have that control over him? He wasn’t a baby. He should’ve realised before what had been going on. She had been pushing him away since at least Paris. Not because she was broken or scared or anything, but because she just didn’t want to get with him. It had all been a game to her and he hadn’t seen it coming. He felt stupid. Really fucking stupid. He had known the whole time she was better than him, but for some reason he had been certain that he was more experienced with romantic endeavours and therefore had the upper hand, but now apparently Beth had superseded him with her intelligence and wit even in this field. But the worst thing was that he hadn’t suspected it at all.

“When’s the next flight going to Kentucky?” he broke the silence.  
Beth looked up from her book, with contempt. “You’re kicking me out of your basement because I didn’t want that media coverage?”  
“No, I’m kicking you out of here because you don’t want anything to do with me. You’re just pushing me away again like after Paris.” Beth wanted to interrupt him, but he didn’t let her. “You’re pushing me away like the whole time we’ve been doing this. You come here to get sex, I want something more serious, you don’t wanna have to deal with that, so you push me away and act like it’s because of your trauma or some shit. And then you just get drunk and don’t talk to me again.” He was enraged. “So, yeah, I am kicking you out of my home. You don’t want a real relationship with me, I have to accept that, but you have to accept that I’m not gonna let you stay in my house if you can’t even be happy with me for just a split-second. So, when’s the next flight to Kentucky?”  
“Okay, good, fine. If this is what we are doing, then sure, I’ll play along,” she answered defiantly. “I’ll pack my bags then. You still have that air mattress? The next flight’s only tomorrow, so I guess I’m gonna have to use it. Thank you for being this clear on that. If you can’t handle me being here, then I won’t be for long. I thought, maybe if you actually were willing to put in effort, we could figure it out, but since you’re clearly not willing, I’m gonna have to accept my fate. Good night, Benny.”

And with that she took back to reading the book. Eyes fixed on the pages, making it really clear that she didn’t really care. Okay, Benny thought, if she’s not going to try to fix this, then I shouldn’t be.

So, he slammed the door as he went into his bedroom and fell face-forward on the bed. All of his hopes and dreams about what their relationship could turn into dumped in the garbage just because of some paparazzi pictures. He guessed it would’ve come up at some other point nevertheless, but he hadn’t expected all of it this soon. He got undressed and went to lie down without brushing his teeth. He knew it was gross, but he also didn’t want to have to leave his room and face Beth. He got one of his ancient chess books and tried to concentrate on some openings that he knew like the back of his hand. When he couldn’t, he decided to just wait until she turned off the light in the main room and went to bed herself. He could hear her get up and disappear into the bathroom. It could only be a matter of minutes now. When she got back, he heard her pump up the air mattress, bringing back almost fond memories, tainted now by the unhappy turn it had all taken. Then she turned the lights off and he fell asleep quickly.

The next morning, needless to say, was very tense. Benny stomped out of his bedroom with no consideration whatsoever about waking Beth up. He went to the kitchen and had at least the decency to make two cups of coffee instead of one. He slammed her cup down right beside her head and said:

“Good morning, Beth!” in an exaggerated cheery tone, but still clearly annoyed. He could see she had fallen asleep in a floral robe that was far from the kinds he wore. It was pink and grey with roses on it and more padded and stiff than his own. It sort of looked like something an old lady would wear. She was completely covered by it under the blanket, cradled really within it and almost cuddling the thing. He had never seen it before and wondered where she had gotten it from and why she was holding it that tightly. She rubbed at her eyes a bit before looking up.

“Good morning, Benny!” Beth answered him in a similarly sarcastic tone after a few seconds. She sat up and started drinking her cup of coffee, avoiding looking at him. He sat back down at the kitchen table. “Okay, Benny, so, I’m gonna get my clothes on and leave. I can entertain myself in New York for a few hours and I am perfectly capable of buying food and a ticket on my own. I’ve already put my keys on the table, so don’t complain about that. Oh, and thanks for the coffee.”

Benny looked at the table in front of him and sure enough, there lay the keys he had given her in those weeks before Paris. It hadn’t been clear when she would come back then and so she had just kept them on her key chain all that time. He was still looking at the key when she took a neatly folded and stacked pile of clothes that she had clearly prepared the evening before and left for the bathroom. 

She came back after only a few minutes with a dark colour of lipstick on, fully dressed and groomed, old lady robe in hand. She walked to her suitcases and opened one, put the robe on top and closed it again. Then she brought them over to the improvised coat hanger on a chair and put hers on. She picked up the suitcases again and simply said: “Bye, Benny, thank you for the training and the sex.”

“Bye, Beth,” he responded bitterly. And then she was gone. 

He wished he could have held her there somehow, but he knew how it was. She wasn’t interested in him and would never be, so he had to accept that and move on. It still fucking hurt though. 

He imagined what she would be doing on her day alone in New York. Probably go shopping. Buy more of her perfect dresses that made her style so fucking refined and timeless. Drink a cup of coffee or tea. Call Townes from a fucking phone box and talk shit about Benny. Or call some of her other friends that he didn’t even know and tell them about all of it. God forbid, call Cleo.

The conclusion to all of his thoughts was that he was fucked and in love with someone who didn’t care. And he hated that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I hope it was better with the spacing between the paragraphs this time.  
> I'm sorry for making Benny this much of a gigantic idiot, but it was kind of what the lyrics of the song demanded of me.  
> I hope you enjoyed!


	4. Arabella

It was two months since Beth had left for Kentucky. Benny hadn’t stopped thinking about her everyday, but it had stopped hurting as much. He was just starting to even slightly move on. Accept that it was over, turn his attention to something else. That was until Beth decided to go on the Tonight Show after all, which was in New York. And she hadn’t even called him.

He guessed it couldn’t really be expected of her any more, since they’d clearly ended things, but it hurt still. She was staying at a hotel - not in his bed, not even on the air mattress - exploring the city without him.

He told himself he wasn’t going to watch it, but of course he did. At 11:00 p.m., he poured himself a glass of water instead of the usual wine as if he could offer emotional support to her through a screen by not drinking himself and sat down in front of the TV he had recently bought, somehow needing to fill up his free-time since he wasn’t playing at tournaments that often any more, instead earning his money with the gambling that was still a habit of his. He suffered through the opening monologue, filled with jokes that only people considerably happier than him could find funny. As Johnny Carson was announcing the names of today’s guests, he was already getting bored, when at last, he called out Beth’s name:  
“...and Beth Harmon,” the audience cheered, “one of the only women in national and international level competitive chess and, since January after her match with Russian Grandmaster and world champion up until now Vasily Borgov, the world champion herself.”

The show continued as boring as it had started, the other guests talking about their careers and current projects, interrupted by skits and commercials. There was a reason Benny didn’t normally watch these shows, It all was the epitomy of insipid American suburbs. But after another commercial break, finally Carson introduced Beth:  
“Now, we’re talking to our twenty-one-year-old chess world champion: Beth Harmon, ladies and gentlemen.”

Beth came out from behind a curtain, looking as beautiful as ever and wearing a dress he hadn’t seen her in. From her shopping sprees alone in New York, he thought bitterly. She had dark lipstick on and her hair looked as perfect as it eternally would. He couldn’t help wanting her there with him and to know she was his. He wanted to have her be there the whole day. And night. There was no escaping noticing every little thing she did with her hands and her face. He had never seen someone walk into a room with more elegance and gracefulness.

Benny had to catch his breath, when she started waving her hand at the audience and got a kiss on each of her cheeks from Johnny Carson. He had to think about how they were geographically closer to each other than they had been for months.

When she sat down, gathering her skirt with her hands daintily, they started talking, as the applause ebbed away:  
“Well, I see, America likes you. Thank you for being here!” Johnny began, before people started clapping again.

“Thank you, thank you,” Beth laughed. That beautiful laugh. “I’m honoured to be here!”

“Now, you became the chess world champion. Would you tell us how you managed that?” he asked.

“Well, first of all, I have to correct you on that. Me beating the world champion doesn’t mean I become the new one. This was the Moscow Invitational, which means that I don’t get any title from it, since it’s an Invitational. The titles are only acquired at the world championship. But to answer your question; how did I do it? I didn’t do it all by myself, I was in Moscow alone, yes, but I kept correspondence with some of my fellow chess players from America. They helped me figure out strategies and moves beforehand and we also had a long call during the adjournment. That’s when we paused the game and finished the next day.”

“And would you tell us, who those players were?”

“Well,” she looked down in her lap for a split-second, before answering. Benny could tell that she didn’t wanna have to talk about him and it made his blood boil. “There was Harry Beltik. He’s not that well-known any more, but he was state champion in Kentucky when I played my first tournament there. Matt and Mike, friends of mine, who help out at tournaments, Danny Weiss and Arthur Levertov, grandmaster friends of Benny Watts and of course Benny himself.”

“Just guys! Do you have something going with any of them?” Benny hated that these questions were being asked when he and Beth could’ve already been going steady publicly for a long time. But he had to remind himself it was over.

“They are my friends. I have been asked whether I am in chess for the boys numerous times in my life. I thought that would go away, now that I have this big win under my belt, but since it hasn’t, I’m gonna be really clear about this now: I do not play and never played chess in order to be surrounded by love interests. I can find those elsewhere. And since the questions about that also won’t go away: Yes, I slept at Benny Watts’ house last year when I was training for my match with Borgov in Paris…” Beth paused for dramatic effect and Benny got nervous what she was going to say.”...on an air mattress in the living room. Nothing has happened with anyone I’ve met from playing chess and I am tired of answering that question. Either also ask all the guys about their love life or don’t ask me. I have a feeling you won’t get far asking a single man.” She was flipping out about this shit again, he just had to shake his head. And she was lying on two levels, she had met both Harry and himself from chess, and Townes also wasn’t an inconsiderable part of her history.

Carson raised his eyebrow. “Benny Watts, huh?” Beth said nothing, but looked at him with contempt. Benny enjoyed being talked about on national television and being acknowledged by her. Although, he didn’t enjoy this whole situation. “He was US champion before you beat him in Ohio, right?”

“Yup. He trained me before I lost in Paris. Although, that wasn’t entirely his fault, of course.” She looked down at her lap again. Memories came up of that phone call they had had before her flight back. Benny remembered exactly how he had pleaded for her to just to stop at his apartment for a day. Talk it out.  
“Yeah, well, um…” Carson had apparently known about the whole hangover situation, judging by how he was dodging the topic. “how did it feel to win against Borgov finally, after already losing to him twice, as you mentioned?” Apparently he had picked up on the fact Beth didn’t want to talk about her love life.

“Good,…obviously. After I had been winning the whole week, I went into the game with confidence. To actually win felt great. I was especially proud of myself for beating him after he had done a move we hadn’t calculated for.” Carson gave her a quizzical look. “Oh sorry, during the adjournment, we went through all the possible moves he might’ve made from that point on and what the best reaction from me would be. That one we hadn’t actually thought of, so I was extra proud when I still got him without help from the others,” Beth answered truthfully. More applause. Benny got even more frustrated he couldn’t see her. 

“So, now that you’ve got the biggest win you’re ever gonna get, what have you been doing?” Carson was smiling. An irritating smile for Benny. He wished he could’ve punched that smile out of his face like that. And also, the world championship was bigger; had he not been listening to her? But Beth let it slide:

“Well, first I went back to my house in Kentucky. I had some payments to make and clean up a bit, take care of the garden and all. I attended the wedding of a childhood friend. I was up here in New York for some time, too. Visiting Benny.” So, a visit she was calling it. He wouldn’t have wanted her to spill something of course, but it was still maddening to hear their few days of bliss be dismissed as that. “Right now, I’m gonna spend a week in New York as a vacation…” Was Beth doing this on purpose? She hadn’t even called even though she was staying a week?! “...and when I get back to Kentucky, I’m gonna start getting ready to defend my title at the Kentucky state championship in summer and then, when… sorry, if I win, I’ll go on to the US Open and start training for the world championship, of course. We’ll see after that.”

Carson chuckled: “I see, you’ve got a lot on your schedule.” Benny was getting tired of seeing his face. Everyone knew full-well that Beth was going to compete at the world championship. The question was only what trainer she was going to have. Hopefully not Townes. Benny hadn’t known that she would compete at the Open again, though. He could’ve figured, but he wasn’t looking forward to their encounter there. Being beaten by someone who broke your heart was pretty shitty after all. It was in August and it was almost May. And although he wanted to go, even just to make an appearance after some time, he would have to think about that.

“How did you learn to play chess, anyway? I mean, everyone knows that you entered your first tournament in Kentucky in 1963, and then directly went on to the US Open, but where did you learn?” Benny shook his head. She had already told journalists that during the adjournment in Moscow. He was getting increasingly aggravated by Carson’s ignorance, needless to say.

If Beth was annoyed by this question though, she didn’t show it:  
“Well, I am an orphan and at the orphanage I lived from when I was nine, there was a janitor who played in the basement. Mr Shaibel. William Shaibel was a fine player. He played a lot and he was quite good.” The same answer she had given the first time.  
“Thank you, Beth Harmon, for sharing with the public. We will be right back after a message from our sponsors,” Carson ended the conversation.

Benny turned off the TV and threw down the remote as an ad for organic cigarettes started playing. He got himself a not very organic cigarette from a packet Beth had forgotten when she had made her fast escape. Normally, he didn’t smoke, but now it was the third pack of the week. He couldn’t get her smiling face off his mind for the entire evening and went to bed in a bad mood.

The next morning, Cleo called: “Did she call you before she went on the show?”  
“What show?” Benny was doing his best not to admit it, but with Cleo, there was no mercy.  
“I know you watched it, Benny. Did she call before?”  
Benny stayed silent. “What do you think?”  
“Oh, okay. Why don’t you call her?” Cleo asked.  
“She broke up with me.” His tone was pointed.  
“She loves you.” Never had anyone said that more matter-of-factly.  
“It didn’t seem like that when she didn’t talk to me after announcing she was going when she was still in the apartment, waiting for her flight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must admit I'm not super proud of this chapter. The song didn't fit this point in the story very well, so I had to make some compromises. Also, sorry for being late if anyone actually keeps tabs lol. Hope you still enjoy it!


	5. I Want It All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of Benny's phone call with Cleo and his call to Beth

“She loves you,” Cleo was saying.

“It didn’t seem like that when she didn’t talk to me after announcing she was going when she was still in the apartment, waiting for her flight.” He was getting irate now.

“She was angry with you. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t regret it.” Benny could almost hear the shrug in her voice.

“Well, she could’ve called within these three months.”

“She’s scared you’re still not gonna work out. You pretty much kicked her out yourself. Plus, you know what she does, when she’s alone at her house.” Benny felt guilty immediately. “She’s been keeping it together before the wedding. It’s Jolene from the orphanage who’s been keeping her sober. She was the one who gave her the money for Moscow after pulling her out of her hole. I think she initially came to tell Beth about Mr Shaibel’s death. They went to the funeral together. She’s on honeymoon now, but Beth was gonna start drinking again at some point. The point has ended up being yesterday evening, though.”

Now, Benny felt really guilty. “Hey, how do you know all that?”

“You know I can get things out of people easily. Drunk people are even easier. And she does have a phone, you know.”

Benny couldn’t believe it. “Why did she leave me then? If she loves me, I mean.”

“Oh, Benny,” Cleo sounded amused. He, however, was absolutely not. “Have you really not figured that out on your own by now?”

“No, evidently, I haven’t,” he answered even more pointedly than before.

“The way I see it, she didn’t want to risk a public breakup. And she has been terrified of the press and their sexism since Moscow at least.”

“Breakup? We were happy then.”

“She needed more time. She did not want to risk you two being shown holding hands in the press and two weeks later have to announce a breakup.”

“We wouldn’t have broken up.”

“She isn’t as naive as you, I see once again. You two hadn’t even spent time together under normal circumstances. Who knows what could’ve happened. She doesn’t know enough about you to just trust you’re not going to turn out to be a serial killer or just an asshole after all. Do you know how many people have let her down? She doesn’t hope. She had just learnt to live in the moment instead of the past and you were pressuring her to simply believe in the future as if it was easy.”

“Fuck-” The realisation hit hard, he had hurt her and she had obviously been right. About the press, too. Cleo had given him a good thrashing on that before.“…What do I do now, Cleo?”

“Since you’re feeling bad, I would advise the most apparent option in this situation: Apologize. Don’t try to get her back. Just fucking say sorry. Don’t push her, let her figure out how she feels about you after you’ve genuinely apologized. Not tried to get her to forgive you, but just honestly said that you are sorry for what you did. She can still make up her mind about it afterwards.”

“Okay, I can try to do that. Problem is I don’t have a number from her in New York. I don’t wanna wait until she’s back in Kentucky.”

“I’ve got her number,” Cleo said in her usual matter-of-fact voice. “Have you got paper and pen?”

“Wait a second.” Benny got up and came back with a pencil and a liquor store receipt that had a sequence of moves written on it, still from when they had been planning her moves during the adjournment in Russia. “Yes.”

She told him the number and he said thank you. “Do you know whether she’s gonna be at the hotel right now?”

Cleo had to let out a laugh: “At the rate she was drinking yesterday, I can hardly believe she’s gone out by now.”

“Oh, um, is she gonna be...responsive by now?” Benny asked, a bit intimidated.

“It’s twelve where you are, right? She should be able to answer the phone.”

“Okay, thank you, Cleo. You really helped.”

“I know. Good luck!”

“Thank you.”

And with that she had hung up. Benny replaced the receiver, still stunned how much he had just realised about Beth and why she had left. He had wanted it all and in the process lost what he’d already got. He should have given her time and space. He should have gotten to know her better, been more sensible to her trauma. He knew that her mother had died in Mexico. Both of the mothers she had had, had died at some point. He should have thought about who she still had left in life and why it was only so few people. And what that must have done to her, mentally. But no, he had only thought of his own wishes. He had just wanted to rush her into it without thinking. He had truly and fully fucked up. And not even realised how much effect the press had had on all of it. Now, he understood why she had gone. And he understood why she hadn’t called. She had just accepted that he had let her down like everyone else, probably beaten herself up for ever trusting him in the first place and gotten back up and kept walking like she had always done. He felt bad. He felt fucking horrible. He had hurt her and that was the worst feeling he could have. 

After having breakfast, he decided to call her. He had thought about what he was going to say. He dialled the number and waited. After a couple of rings, a clearly very hungover Beth answered with a voice as if she had just woken up:

“Hello?” 

“Beth,”Benny was still happy to hear her voice, although he was nervous.

“Why are you calling?” Beth was angry.

“I just wanted to apo-” he tried to say, before he was interrupted.

“Where did you even get my number? Ohhh, Cleo gave it to you, didn’t she?”

“She made me realise a lot o-” She cut him off again.

“And she told you all of it, too. I should’ve known after Paris she couldn’t be trusted. I shouldn’t have told her so much. If I only hadn’t gotten this drunk…”

“Beth-” Benny tried to somehow get to her.

“Benny, it’s too late. Don’t call me any more.”

And with that she was the second woman to hang up on him that day. And he hadn’t even had lunch. Another time, he would have blamed it on the alcohol and just tried to call Beth again when he thought she maybe wasn’t drunk or hungover, but he could sense that even if it had just been for the alcohol, Beth had reacted how she had reacted and he had lost his chance. Sober Beth would have found it just as wrong for him to call her again after she had been this clear. He just had to wait for her to do something. And if she didn’t, he had to accept that. He wasn’t entitled to be in a relationship with her. It wasn’t his place to decide. He had made it clear enough where he stood and that if she wanted to, she could get him back any time.

It had hit him suddenly during breakfast that it was pretty much exactly a year ago since they had first driven to New York together in his Beetle and they had trained for Paris. And since the speed chess and what happened after. He would have liked a bit more clarity and a bit more of a joyful anniversary, but here he was.

When he looked for a bar to go to that evening to get his mind off it, he didn’t expect to see what he saw.


	6. No. 1 Party Anthem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What he sees at the bar

When he entered the bar what Benny saw was Beth. Visibly not sober. On the dance floor. With a half-full glass in hand. Dancing with – he assumed – a stranger. Laughing. 

Fuck, he thought. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

First of all, fuck, she was drinking again. Or still, he couldn’t quite decide. Second, fuck, she was here. She was in the same room as him when all he’d wanted to do was either fall into her arms, absolutely sober and happy, or never think about her again. Third, fuck, she was drunk enough to be dancing with some man she probably didn’t know and he definitely didn’t trust. Fourth, fuck, he couldn’t interfere with it because she was her own person and she had left and they weren’t a thing any more if they had ever been and she didn’t want anything to do with him and was enjoying herself just fine without him.

He went in and directly to the bar anyway because there really weren’t many options within walking distance and he had already drunken more than enough at home to not be able to drive anywhere. He ordered a beer and tried not to stare too much towards Beth and her dance partner. It was kind of like a car crash where you just have to look. She was giggling at him and dancing enthusiastically. It occurred to Benny in that moment that he didn’t think he’d ever seen her dance before. And he hated that he was still jealous of this gross frat boy who probably dealt drugs to get money for being the one who danced with her and not him, even though he would have probably been pitying himself just as much if he had had to endure drunk Beth. 

He didn’t know what to do. Or rather he knew what to do but every impulse told him the opposite and he wanted to disobey his common sense more than he ever had. He knew he should just keep sitting at the bar and drink his beer and ignore her and go home and sleep and try not to think about her and be… sensible.

But what his body was telling him was to down his beer, leave the bar stool dramatically and confidently and heroically walk up to her to save her from this man, from herself. Grab both her shoulders and shake and tell her to: “Snap out of it!”  
Try to earn her back, do anything. 

Luckily, his mind won and he saved himself from all the trouble that would have caused. Instead, he tried to focus on something else, anything else. Even though his mind was cloudy and Beth’s red hair swinging on the dance floor, constantly trying to grab his attention, he managed to think of a topic only marginally less related to her. He thought about how he drank alcohol. He had only been a casual drinker before Beth came into his life, a beer here, a flute of champagne there if there was an occasion, although he found that tradition pretty silly, but it had never been unhealthy, he didn’t think. Sure, there had been a few times where he had gotten a bit too drunk in his early twenties, but it was never out of the regular. When he met Beth, it had gone down to near nothing. He forced himself to not have booze in the apartment for her sake and he hadn’t craved it enough to stock back up after her leaving. The months before Moscow when they weren’t talking, he had soothed his heartache with gambling as he had always done. But now that she was gone again, he had opted straight for the alcohol. Although he wasn’t nearly as unhinged with it as Beth, he knew it wasn’t healthy the way he was doing it. 

He downed his third bottle of beer and was just ordering another one when Beth approached the bar. She didn’t even bother trying to stand as far from him as possible but just walked up directly to the bartender and asked for a Gibson. 

If she recognised Benny, she didn’t let it show. She was literally brushing against his shoulder with her boobs as she reached out across the bar between him and a shady guy sitting on the stool next to him. Without acknowledging his presence, she went back to where her drunk frat guy was still dancing at the same spot she had left him. Benny didn’t say anything her either, he just sat there, trying his best not to imagine the nights they’d had on his futon as soon as he smelt her scent and felt her abdomen press against his spine. (Did she do this to any stranger when she was this drunk or was she very aware that it was him?) It was truly upsetting.

It was unrealistic that she hadn’t recognised him, after all, even Beth Harmon couldn’t know that many cowboy-pirates with long blond hair around here. He rationalised that she probably was just too drunk to notice. She had slurred her words ordering and almost toppled over his myriad of bottles lined up nicely on the counter and her drink had almost spilt when she had taken it from the bartender’s hand. 

But it was still weird that she had come here from her presumably luxurious hotel on the other side of the city when there were literal hundreds of bars in New York. Maybe she had just thought Well, what do I know in the city? and gone for this, but maybe – and that seemed much more likely to Benny in his inebriated state – she had wanted to bump into him. The only question was why. 

Did she want to make up and fall on her knees to apologise and had gotten too carried away drinking? Did she want to purposely hurt him by getting drunk and making him notice but not be able to do anything, which was what she was doing right now? These questions permeated his brain and world for the whole evening.

When he woke up the next morning and remembered the night before, he was surprised he had made it to bed safe. He could only remember vignettes of what had occurred. He knew he had been sad and gone to the bar and there was Beth and a guy and he was drunk. The rest was just more drunkenness and sadness.

His head hammering and eyes stinging, he stepped into the light of the main room. He tried to mend the new-oncoming headache with a glass of water and an Aspirin. And another Aspirin when it didn’t work after about ten minutes.

The things remaining in the fridge apart from the alcohol he used to concoct something vaguely resembling an edible, but definitely not advisable, breakfast accompanied by more water. He tried to focus on anything chess like he usually did when eating alone and, as a matter of fact, as he had also done when Beth had been sitting directly opposite him those five weeks before Paris. Never would he be able to concentrate his attention on such mundane an issue as Grandmaster games if he could even certainly say where on earth she was ever again. 

Of course, he couldn’t focus on anything right now. His mind kept wandering from the pamphlet in front of him to this past night. He could remember how soft he had gotten from the inside out at the touch of Beth’s midriff, her shirt riding up against his back. And how hard he had had to force himself to not touch her at once. He didn’t know if he regretted it. He knew he shouldn’t. He had done the right thing by leaving her alone, but still he kind of did regret it. It would’ve been a bit weird, sure, but maybe, just maybe, he could’ve earned her back with the heroic gesture of getting her safely back to her hotel and holding her hair back while she puked. Okay, perhaps not. But it was weird not to say hello at all, wasn’t it? After all, they were trying to be friends or something, weren’t they? And even if they weren’t, they knew each other well enough to say hello anyway. Beth had been so drunk she probably hadn’t even registered his presence, but he surely should’ve said something. He just didn’t understand social norms. If all of it had just been numbers and moves and strategy, he could have predicted what she would do and even if he couldn’t, he could have at least understood what she had done to him and not let that happen again, but right now he didn’t even know if they were playing any more. Oh, it was all so confusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thx for reading! I'm not sure I like how I wrote this chapter, but oh well


	7. Mad Sounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny listens to music and maybe that isn't the worst activity in the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I coudn't get the italicisation (is that the right word?) to work properly, so just imagine that all the song titles are italicised as they should be lol

Once he’d cleared his head a bit, he decided to go through his mail. He had to admit that he hadn’t really been diligent with opening it regularly in the past, but the drinking had only made it worse. He turned on some music because he might as well, it wasn’t like looking at return addresses and keeping track of a literal three different piles was very mentally taxing. The Peggy Lee record was still lying around next to the record player and since he didn’t have the willpower necessary to pick out another one, he popped it on. Sure, it would remind him of Beth, or more specifically, the time between Moscow and her return, but oh well…

Sitting back down at the card table, he started sorting. The most letters went on the bills pile. Utilities and rent were always due. The only person who would never stop writing you letters was your landlord. 

The second pile, the invitations to exhibitions and invitationals filled up pretty quickly, too. Since it was pretty common public knowledge by now that he had helped Beth in Moscow, public interest had gone up a bit again where it had only been focussed on Beth before she started telling reporters about it, there were invites to talk shows and requests for interviews in there, too. Chess Review wanted him to tell them about the strategy they went through, but many publications just wanted to poke into the personal relationship between Beth and Benny and how intimate they had been in their training before Paris that had also gone public. Benny would’ve loved to tell them to kiss his ass or yell to them all about the break-up, but since he had restrained himself so far, he wouldn’t fuck it up now. Especially not for Beth.

When he was done after about ten minutes and there had been no personal letters in there and he wasn’t in the mood to call tournament directors and publications to say that he wouldn’t do any of it, he just listened to the music: _It’s Been A Long, Long Time ___

__You’ll never know how many dreams I dream about you,  
Or just how empty they all seem without you_ _

__Benny felt personally attacked by these lyrics; how dare Peggy Lee sing to me about being reunited with her lover while I feel the same things, but can’t be reunited with Beth? He just stayed sitting there grumpily through the song._ _

__Then _Lullaby In Rhythm _came on. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard that song hundreds of times while listening to this record and always thought that it was one of the most vacant in meaning. But no one could deny that it was something that you could very easily dance to. And he already felt his fingers and feet tapping without permission. He tried so hard to not let it happen. I’m not going to dance around my apartment, listening to Peggy Lee. But he did. And it felt freeing. Sure, he wasn’t a dancer per sé and he had never really done it outside of middle-school dances he was forced to attend between tournaments, but there was just something about getting lost in the music. In Peggy Lee’s voice singing nonsensical shit about the moon-man that was literally supposed to lull you to sleep and stop thinking about the real world, that was nice. Dancing as if nobody’s watching, isn’t that what they say?___ _

_____Alone Together _described way too accurately how it had felt with Beth. Even only half-listening he could tell that’s how they had been.___ _ _ _

______Alone together, beyond the crowd  
Above the world, we're not too proud to cling together  
We're strong as long as we're together _ _ _ _ _ _

______Luckily, it was catchy enough to still not be distracted by the lyrics too much. He wondered for a small second how stupid he must look in the apartment, dancing on bare-foot, completely alone at five p.m. He had always felt dumb dancing. He could calculate and analyse and talk, but moving his body was really not his strong suit. But if this is helping, I’m gonna keep doing it, he thought and shook that insecurity creeping in off._ _ _ _ _ _

______He knew that he hated the lyrics of _I’m Beginning To See The Light _. It was a nice song to enjoy the sounds of without listening to the lyrics, though. If he really considered it, that was probably the song that described them after Moscow.___ _ _ _ _ _

_________It’s A Good, Good Night _, the epitome of hedonistic ecstasy. He enjoyed it anyway, even felt a smile almost creep up on his face at the image of actually taking a brush and painting all the grey buildings of New York in bright colours as if that changed anything about the empty people who lived in them. That had come to fulfil their dreams and were now employed in some company that only really existed to make money. Oh, the absurdity of it all!___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________During _You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me _, he was surprised he didn’t immediately have to think about Beth and her addictions as soon as the first line hit. He was really getting into some sort of trance, dancing by himself and ignoring the lyrics. He only even noticed that the song had come on by the half-way point.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_____________You’re Mine, You! _and _Life Is For Livin’ _went much the same. He knew that he would’ve been annoyed at the banality of the lyrics, but right now, he was just enjoying the music._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________________You Don’t Know _on the other hand, was a completely different story. He listened to every word of that and shit, did he relate. But it felt good. He was channelling his aggression into stomping angrily on the floor and feel these emotions he had been dulling down with liquor. Sure, they weren’t good emotions, but they sure as hell were better than not feeling anything at all and waking up with headaches.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________You don't know how much I love you  
You don't know how much I care  
You don't know much I need you  
Without you life I can't bear_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________The flame that you left is still burning  
Burning down deep in my soul  
I think of all your loving and kissing  
It's you I wanna hold _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

___________________Fever _was the perfect song to dance to. The snapping, the vocals perfectly coordinating. How she was actually singing about Romeo and Juliet and Pocahontas and Captain Smith without batting an eye. It was perfect if you didn’t want to think about anything happening in the real world and it felt oddly like being close to Beth.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________He would’ve never expected it, but listening to music and dancing had actually made him feel better._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I felt like this was just an album review in fanfic form, but oh well...  
> I'm still not sure whether someone like Benny would've been too cool to listen to Peggy Lee, but oh well.  
> If you wanna listen to the album now yourself, this is the link: https://open.spotify.com/album/0puYTmfXiL5UZLyl33nXKT?si=i3q_ZpCfTKSpmzRFcFODfg  
> I've genuinely been listening to it since watching TQG and I really love the following:  
> Alright, Okay, You Win, It's Been A Long, Long Time, Alone Together, You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me, You're Mine, You!, You Don't Know and of course Fever.


	8. Fireside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny kinda starts loving himself?

The next few weeks were better. Benny could finally start enjoying the short bearable period in spring where it wasn’t scorchingly hot, but you also not freezing cold in New York. He went out the door when it was still daylight and he got the groceries he needed in order not to have to eat nothing but canned soup that he hadn’t even been bothering to heat up. He cooked for the first time in months and it tasted at least okay. He didn’t even go to the liquor store to reconstruct the architecturally impressive tower of bottles he had developed next to the fridge.

He still didn’t have a lot of money due to the excessive gambling that had taken place in the last few months, but it was enough to go to the petrol station and fill up the tank to go to a tournament that wasn’t too far away and earn more there. He had seen articles in Chess Review about his disappearance from tournaments and he wanted to get back into it anyway. He would have to once his savings would be done for. 

Of course, there was still the pain that Beth’s absence inflicted on him and it stung whenever he thought about what she was up to. He didn’t really know if she had been constantly drinking or if she had help and people she could go to. But what he did know was that it was none of his business any more. As much as it hurt, Beth wasn’t his responsibility and would never let herself be again. He had fucked it up several times, she had gone and she was probably fine without him. It wouldn’t change anything if he was there anyway. She could drink herself to death no matter what happened. So, he sent his best wishes to her, but he knew he had to focus on himself. No use dwelling on these things. 

It was hard, but it seemed to work. He saw his friends and had people to talk to again and none of them knew what had happened. Weiss and Wexler and Levertov were chess friends and they only talked about chess with him. He was glad of it. He could focus on manoeuvres and strategy and not feelings with them. Of course, they had known he was infatuated with her when he had asked them to help him with figuring out the best moves during the adjournment, but when he told them he hadn’t heard from her in a couple of months, they let it rest and were sure to get back to endgames instead of prodding. 

He was glad that he could finally focus on himself. He knew that he had been selfish in the past, but that was different. He wasn’t elevating his ego and disregarding other people’s needs any more, but rather taking himself head-on and confronting the issues and dark holes and getting to be a better, healthier person each day. It wasn’t all that fun, it was still hard work, but the rewards would show when, after a day at a tournament, he only noticed in the evening when he got back to his room that he had barely been thinking about Beth, too absorbed in what he had loved since he was a small boy. The sheer love he rediscovered for chess was the best feeling ever, only triumphed by the first time falling in love with it. 

These emotions were much more rewarding than any amount of alcohol could’ve been. He still sometimes had the reflex to just get a beer from the bar to drown out the voices in his head after he’d missed some move or only won by a small margin or chance rather than towering over his opponent with the brilliance and subtle elegance that Beth usually did. But the reflex went away after some time and by the time it was full-blown summer it wasn’t a common occurrence any more. 

The thoughts about Beth also became less frequent. He suspected that she maybe still wasn’t in the best place and he did have to think back to their last phone call sometimes, but ultimately, it became a passing thought among many others. Of course, he knew that he was still in love with her in a weird way. A way that didn’t impair his life any more. It didn’t hurt any more because he had gotten used to it and it felt good to be somewhere that Beth wasn’t and experience things in a way she never would. It felt good not to share every thought with the Beth that he had had in his head for so long, but just live and almost laugh at himself for being this in love with her. 

He still didn’t hook up with anyone else. He could’ve. Easily. There were always girls at tournaments that would try to get him to bed and he would only have to take his pick and have an okay pastime for the night. But he didn’t and he laughed at himself for it, but not with self-contempt any more, rather with a weird fondness of himself that he didn’t recognise. Before, it had always been about proving to be the best for other people to see him that way and validate him for it. But now, it was something weird coming from within. He had to sometimes just grin at himself in the mirror because he was proud of the person he had become. Sure, he’d done a lot of shit in his day and a lot of it wasn’t fixed, but he felt like he owed it to himself to pick himself back up and be happy. 

He would’ve never told anyone else this. It sounded cheesy and narcissistic at the same time and he couldn’t really put it into words that weren’t a bit too blunt to elicit any reaction but confusion and rejection. So he kept to himself with his new way of life. And he had never been happier.

He still had his moments, sure, but it didn’t feel as taunting and heartbreaking when he thought about his life. There were moments he remembered fondly and ones that he hadn’t wanted to remember for a long time that now felt somehow insignificant. It was insignificant to think about his past trauma when there was still so much time and success ahead of him. He would never be world champion. Not as long as Beth lived. He would never be even US champion again. But he felt accomplished in what he did. In this hedonistic life that he had built out for himself where he didn’t have to think about the news or the Cold War or Russia in general and all its implications in the chess world. 

There was a new peace and quiet that he could revel in and when he didn’t need to go to tournaments, he could enjoy the things apart from chess in New York. He would reread books he had last read as a teenager when his mom was forcing him to do something other than chess for once. And he loved it. Loved seeing all these characters and worlds from a new perspective, but them also being inseparably linked to the first time he read them. 

He never thought that it was possible, but he was actually sort of becoming a fulfilled human being that didn’t hyper-focus on chess any more, but just enjoyed life. Of course, something had to go wrong with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeey, we're ending with a cliffhanger again. I hope you liked the chapter. It was kind of weird for me to imagine Benny going through the same kind of self-love journey that I have gone through. I loved writing something that wasn't as angsty any more, too, and I think this was definitely and improvement from the last chapter. I didn't really like that one tbh, but I had to put it in because of the song of course. 
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments!


	9. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry for being this late in the day with the chapter. The last week has been kind of stressful and I've had to do most of it today. Enjoy and if you want to, let me know what you think in the comments!

Benny was still sitting up at three a.m. one day, studying a game he had recently played in Vegas, where he had reclaimed the US Champion title because Beth hadn’t showed up. Even with all of the self-improvement he had been doing, his sleep schedule was still catastrophic. It had been a fine game against someone whose name he didn’t even remember because, if he was honest, Beth was the only domestic player that he still considered competition. The phone started ringing. He looked up, confused by who the fuck was calling him at three a.m. The only person who had done that before was...Let’s not think about her, he thought.

He stood up slowly and made his way across the room, silently hoping for it to just stop, so that he could finish the game and then go to bed. But it kept ringing, so he picked it up.

“Yeah?”

“Benny.” Beth, fuck.

“Why the fuck are you calling at three in the morning?”

“To tell you that I love you.” Her words were slurred and had a weird offended undertone. Benny was unfazed.

“How much have you had to drink, Harmon?” he asked, already exasperated by the prospect of what this call would be like. Fuck, this couldn’t be happening.

“That’s none of your business,” she answered, her voice lacking that sober conviction it usually possessed.

“Ok, Beth, what do you want?” He hated that he already felt weak, talking to her, ready to abandon all rational thought and drive to Kentucky to save her and to make big confessions and live happily ever after with her, just for this all to be over.

“I want you here with me, Benny,” she answered. It was getting harder to resist. “I’ve wanted you here with me since after Paris.”

“That’s not true and you know it as well as I do, Beth.” What kind of crap was she pulling now?

“That’s not fair,” she whined.

“What wasn’t fair was to let me train you for weeks and then throw it all out of the window and then not even come back to New York, come crawling back after I helped you out in Moscow, only to abandon me again and then call at three a.m. and tell me that you love me.” He knew he was stupid for arguing with her while she was drunk and he had accepted most of it, but now all the anger from these last five months was coming out with a vengeance and he couldn’t really restrain himself.

“Okay, I’m sorry, Benny.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re sorry that I didn’t try to win you back or whatever and you’re sorry I’m not there to hang behind you like a puppy and do what you want me to do. I know you’re fucked up. We both know you’re fucked up. But if you want my help, you shouldn’t call when you’re hardly coherent and demand that just because you say that you love me I need to stop everything I’m doing and fall to your knees in Kentucky. If you need help, get help. You can call me when you’re sober.”

No remorse set in, now. He knew that she needed harsh realities rather than the pity some people looked at her with and he knew that if she actually wanted to, she would come back around. He would happily help her again if she stopped behaving like this. It was cruel, but it would work. He’d seen her at her best and now he had seen her at her worst and if she was the person he knew, then she would stop drinking and win the World Championship on her own just to spite him. It maybe wasn’t the healthiest motivation to operate on, but he knew that she could do a lot with the anger in her.

And sure enough, the next afternoon, she called again..

“Did I call you last night?”

“Yup. Around three in the morning.”

“Oh, fuck. What did I say?”

“Uhhm, that you loved me. And you wanted me to come to Kentucky to help you and you also said sorry very unconvincingly.”

“Oh god, I’m, well, sorry.” She let out a little huff that could be interpreted as laughter.

“It’s fine, you’re clearly better now.” He had noticed right away that her voice wasn’t slurred and broken any more. She already reminded him much more of the Beth he knew.

“Yeah, I haven’t been doing great lately. Kentucky is a lonely place to be when you’re not drinking. It’s just so fucking boring and it was all a bit too much. Being back here after fucking up with you and not knowing what to do with my life. Everyone being so fucking happy and idyllic, when you know that behind the facade, they might even be more fucked up than me...All of it.”

“I thought I fucked up with you?!”

“We both fucked up, I think.” That huff of air again.

“Well, yeah.”

“How have you been?”

“Uhh, good, actually. I was absolutely fucked up for a few months after you left, but now I’m fine.”

The next time she called was definitely worse. 

“Benny,” she groaned. “I need help.”

“What’s wrong now?”

“I tried to stop the last few days. Withdrawal kicked in and I just couldn’t do it. I took five pills last night, a bottle of wine. I can’t do this alone.”

In that moment, his heart melted. He couldn’t be angry at her any more. He couldn’t be cruel to her. He had to see her and help her. There was no way she was going to do this alone and if he was still the person she decided to contact, then he could do it.

“How bad is the hangover?”

“Everything hurts. Will you come?”

“If you give me your address”

Beth gave him the address and he started driving around twenty minutes later after packing a bag. There weren’t any tournaments he was planning to go to in the next few weeks and this felt like it was going to be a longer affair.

The drive was long and monotonous as it always was without company. The radio still worked, but there was only bad songs on there and even playing against himself became boring after a while. He banished the thought that it would have been better with Beth there from his mind.

The highways were all the same and nearly everything just consisted of straight lines. There weren’t many other cars and when it got dark around the time he was leaving Pennsylvania and there was no one else on the road, he just stopped in the middle of the street and peed in a bush.

He stopped at two petrol stations along the way to fill the engine and also his stomach. He arrived in Lexington when the sun had already risen. It was very stereotypical suburbia. The neat yards with the white pickets fences surrounding pastel-coloured houses, all the same size, with porches and garages. The same three types of car in front of them. 

It was all terribly middle-class and boring, but it felt kind of fitting for Beth to be somewhere among them, hidden in her own house with all her problems and never letting on that there was anything else to notice about her than her chess. 

And maybe there wasn’t. Benny had always suspected that the people who seemed most perfect and in-place were the ones who had the most problems. Maybe every mother behind these doors was an alcoholic. The perfect families there to cover up the lack in self-expression and personality.


	10. Snap Out Of It

When he arrived at the house, there was a woman already standing on the welcome mat, banging on the door. When Benny banged the car door, she turned around. She was tall and black and dressed in a similar long black coat and cowboy boots as him, although hers were considerably less dirty and she had paired a fashionable turtle-neck with them.

“Are you Benny Watts?” The woman asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Jolene.” She reached her hand out for him to shake. “We haven’t met. I was at…”

“...the orphanage with Beth, I know.” He took her hand. “Congratulations on getting married.”

“Thank you. I see Beth’s talked about me?”

“Yup.” He didn’t really have anything smarter to say.

“Well, I’ve also heard all about you. Were you stupid enough to come here on a whim?”

“No, I’ve learnt my lesson.” This was starting to feel like an interrogation.

“You’re saying she called you?”

“All on her own.”

“That’s funny. She hasn’t been picking up when I’ve called. Was this the first time?”

“No, she called once in the middle of the night maybe three weeks ago and told me that she loved me and wanted me to drive to Kentucky and then the next morning she called again to apologize about that.”

“You know about the vitamins?”

“The tranquillisers? She’s mentioned them.” He was transported back to that evening in January when she had told him about the pills. He had to swallow.

“You know you hurt her, right?”

“I’ve realised by now, yeah.”

“It seems, the pills aren’t the only thing she’s having. There’s empty wine bottles in the garbage can.” She made a vague gesture to the corner of the house. “Listen, I’m not trying to force you to do anything and I know it’s over and shit, but I’m kinda busy going to law school right now and I think she still likes you, so, if you could maybe just stay ‘round here for a week or something and look after her, get her to stand up straight again… I don’t know, play chess, just distract her, you know?”

“That’s what I was intending to do. Is she not opening the door?”

“I think she’ll need a moment, but if we try again now, we could be in luck.”

That’s when they started to hear steps coming from behind them. They both whipped around to see a tired, pale Beth carrying a big paper bag in her right hand. Benny was stunned into silence, his mouth probably gaping wide open. He’d thought he was prepared to see her again, but apparently not.

“Well, Cracker, not that bad after all?” Jolene was the first to speak.

“I was only expecting Benny.” Oh fuck, if he could have swept her up in a hug and never let her go and protect her forever he would’ve done. She was in noticeably bad shape, her eye sockets bigger, mouth even smaller than usual, her skin pale and matte as opposed to the light shine it usually had. 

“If you keep me worrying, I’m gonna come. Regardless of who you’re expecting. ‘Specially if you don’t answer your phone!” Jolene retorted before it became awkward that Benny hadn’t said anything.

“Sorry. I wasn’t really up to doing that.”

“But you could call him on your own?”

Beth stared at her, not saying anything. She was obviously embarrassed of her recent habits. 

“Well, I can let you two in if you get out of the way,” she said after a long moment of silence, dangling her keys in front of their eyes. As she walked past him, she looked at Benny intently and he felt like he could melt against her body in an instant if he touched her.

“Thank you for coming.”

He stopped himself from saying anything for fear of being stupid or saying too much. He just really didn’t know what to say. God, this was awkward. And there he had been, sure he was over her, for the last few months.

“You’re welcome,” he managed by the time she was already through the door.

The house was big and completely decorated in pastel colours. The thick smell of alcohol hung in the air and everything was dark and dusty behind the drawn curtains. Jolene immediately began opening windows while Benny followed Beth into the kitchen, hoping to get at least one moment of half-privacy.

She set down the bag and then looked at him again. “Hey, Benny.”

“Hey, Beth,” he answered dumbly. Why was this so awkward?

He saw her hand shake when she picked up the first item from the bag. She looked even smaller now than she did normally and he had the instinct to hold her again.

“Lemme help you with that.” He approached her and she handed him the can of soup she was holding when he held his hand out. “Where does this go?”

“There” She pointed at a cupboard and flopped down on a chair, clearly exhausted from the carrying. Withdrawal must’ve really been kicking her ass. 

“Mind if I just sit here and watch you do it?”

“That’s fine, you don’t look too well.”

“Yeah, being off it hasn’t been fun.”

“Where does this go?” Benny held up another item.

After a few minutes, Jolene joined them again, various empty and half-empty bottles in her arms. “Where’s your bins?”

Beth unlocked the back door for her and pointed out the metal containers to her. The backyard was larger than Benny had expected. There weren’t any flowers like in the front, but the overgrown grass looked nice enough.

When Benny had asked for the bathroom because he definitely needed to pee after the long drive, he didn’t even have to try to peek into the cupboard to see the pills behind the ajar door. There were several glass bottles, varying in fullness of green pills, there. He scooped up as many of them as he could with his hands and brought them back to the kitchen table, where they were still sitting.

“How do we dispose of these?”

“Down the drains and toilets closest to whatever room we find them in,” Jolene answered quickly. She was probably still in the know from the last time. When he hadn’t been there to help. He immediately redirected his thoughts as he had gotten used to doing.

“Are they hidden everywhere?”

“If it’s anything like the last time, then yeah,” she answered, Beth just staring at her feet. This was probably as humiliating for her as Paris.

Benny tackled downstairs while Jolene made it upstairs. (“Already know the hiding places up there.”) He was grateful because finding all of them downstairs was hard enough, he didn’t want to imagine what it was like in her bedroom. 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, considering Beth’s intelligence and familiarity with the place since she was fifteen, but she had found some great nooks and crannies to hide the innumerable bottles. It was nearly dark by the time the pile that had amassed on the piano and couch and kitchen table was really finished and they couldn’t find any more. 

Beth, who had been watching from the couch with a chess book in her hand, got up and looked around. “Yeah, I know,” she said, answering Benny’s concerned look. “Is it just me or is anyone else hungry?”

Jolene seemingly agreed with her, nodding her head as she was descending the stairs. “Mm-hm.”

She heated up the canned soup and they sat down to eat. It was oddly silent. Beth’s hands shook as she lifted the spoon to her mouth and Jolene shot her some concerned glances, but she still managed to not stain the tablecloth. 

“Right. I kinda gotta go,” Jolene said apologetically when she was finished. “You know; home. To my husband. And my house.”

She stood up and Beth stood up too to hug her. 

“Tell me if the cowboy misbehaves.” Benny was clearly meant to hear it as well.

Beth just giggled in response. She let her out the door and then returned to the kitchen. 

“I can’t believe you’re actually here, Benny.”

“Neither can I, really.”

“Thank you.” 

“You know I would come anytime.”

By the time he had gotten his duffel bag and flushed all the pills down the toilet downstairs, she was already laying in bed. He knocked at the frame of the still open bedroom door. 

“Hey.” She still looked exhausted, but much more comfortable in her pyjamas, curled up in her blankets, almost shivering despite the warm summer night. 

“Where can I brush my teeth?” he asked. 

“To your right is the bathroom. And then the other door is where you can sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> We're making progress, people! I think I would've done this earlier if I hadn't forced myself to stick to the songs. I'm excited for the last two chapters now, definitely.


	11. Knee Socks

The next weeks were gruelling. There was an endless bombardment with new issues that arose that managed to be diverse enough that it became a hard thinking exercise trying to solve them but also similar enough to turn monotonous and, quite simply, exhausting. It felt like a hard, varied work-out when you hadn’t used any muscle in your body once in your life. 

One day, Beth would be shaking profusely in bed and Benny couldn’t do anything but watch in agony and try to be strong for her. Other days she would be fine physically, but didn’t say a word and get lost in her own head, snapping at him when he tried to get her to eat. Sometimes she would be so weak that he felt like he needed to speak softly to her in order not to risk finding the exact resonant frequency of her body and shattering it into a hundred million pieces like the glasses of wine that she wasn’t even allowed to think about. 

Some days, his own brain and body were the problem. When she seemed fine, he had to remind himself not to start firing irrational confessions of feelings or making incriminating claims against her, sometimes it was not throwing himself right at her chest and start devouring her that was the problem. She was too weak for all of that still, he knew. She wasn’t physically ready to fight, even if it was just verbally, and sure as hell not physically. Even when it seemed like it.

He knew that of all the things she needed, pity was the last on the list. But it did make him sad to see her like this. Being catapulted back into reality after running away from it and seeking a hiding place at the bottom of a glass or a bottle. He knew he couldn’t even begin to imagine what she was going through, and as she spilt more and more of her upbringing to him, what she had already gone through.

It started making more sense after a while, her poker face, her pristine style, the confident walk and sarcastic comebacks. They were all precarious defence mechanisms and facades that she put up that could crack at any moment. They sought to seem determined, concealing how desperate she was to her opponent who couldn’t know at any cost how her life would fall apart the moment she lost. The way it had almost done after Vegas, but didn’t because she had Alma. She talked a lot about Alma. The way it did after Mexico, but she just kept going. How something had finally given after Paris. How it was Jolene who picked her back up.

He noticed that, for an orphan, she talked a lot about family. True family, not genetic. There was such fondness in her words on the days where she could and would readily talk to him. Fondness for Jolene, pride that she was doing greater things than anyone had ever expected of her. Sadness when she talked about the tragic life of Alma. She didn’t know what life Alma would’ve wanted. Guessed that she would’ve liked to become a pianist. What she did know was that her adoptive mother hadn’t gotten it. Beth seemed to have an awful lot of anger at that. Anger at society for expecting her to just be a will-less, life-less housewife that abided by every whim of her husband Allston. The pure disdain, with which she said his name. Her anger at him was the biggest. He, who never concerned himself with other people’s, especially his wife’s, needs. Who tried to get her to shut up and just left when he couldn’t make her. Beth once almost broke a mug, slamming it down on the coffee table, talking about him. 

Benny was glad he was there for her through this. She was working through stuff, that much was obvious. And he was holding her up. No matter how hard it was, one day being able to normally talk to her and then being met with hours of silence the next, her clinging onto him and never wanting him to let go one moment and just wanting to be left alone the second. 

When she was in one of her moods and it felt safe to leave her, he would occupy himself by cleaning up the rest of the mess still left in the house, collecting her mail and sorting it, ready for her to peruse once she was in a better place, getting groceries, just taking care of the house. He also took a look at the books stored in boxes in her childhood bedroom. He knew this problem. There were just too many articles, magazines and books to all keep on constant display. 

It was fascinating, looking through her annotations. Unlike him, she was seemingly always committing the sacrilege of writing directly in the margins instead of having different pieces of paper in between the pages or, his method, having a referencing and cataloguing system where he could find everything easily and collecting all references to any given strategy in the same place to look up. 

This was handy for him now, though, as he went through her books. It was weird to see clearly adolescent handwriting spelling out the advantages of moves that hadn’t even occurred to him before twenty-five. In the oldest book, a red copy of Modern Chess Opening, which she, for some reason, had another one of, her children’s handwriting was the most impertinent. It was almost insulting to see how she had, at eight-years-old and not in possession of anything but the information in this book, deduced other, more advanced lines of play, not shown in any of the diagrams. It made him wonder what she could’ve achieved, had she not been abandoned for the first fifteen years of her life. He probably couldn’t have stood a chance against her, even with the age difference. Maybe she could’ve beat Borgov at fifteen instead of 20.

Beth’s face would always light up when Jolene called. He understood now, why. She was family. The only family she had. She was the anchor in the world and the only thing that made her laugh these days. Jolene would call after work and Beth would sit there all through dinner, giggling and jokingly scolding her for some of her more cheeky remarks. There was real joy in that girl’s face when she picked up the phone and heard Jolene’s voice. 

Benny was actually sleeping in her bed again. It had just become clear after a few nights where Beth had been shaking in bed and come to the guest room to cuddle that it was more comforting for her. And he certainly wasn’t complaining. But they weren’t doing anything else. Just sleeping and taking comfort in the other’s presence.

Autumn came faster than both of them had anticipated and he realised that it had almost been three months that he had staid with her. But the time didn’t feel wasted. She was clearly getting better, the nights where she was actually unable to sleep without him few and far between now. They could play normally on the porch and in the living room and she started cooking and accompanying him to the grocery store again. 

Both Jolene and Harry had come around a few times for lunch. And even Townes had been there, although, that was a bit weird because the two of them just seemed to be in on something that Benny wasn’t. They would talk about how they were happy “they had come around” and he didn’t feel entitled to ask. Honestly, he was still kicking himself for not being in Moscow in person as opposed to Townes, so he didn’t even really try to figure it out. 

She seemed happy, though. And that was what was most important to him. She was excited when September rolled around and she could start wearing all the pretty dresses that had been too hot before. 

The only downer was the anniversary of Mr Shaibel’s death. Jolene came in her fancy car unannounced and Beth, who had refused to tell him why she was wearing all black and had been weirdly quiet all morning, wordlessly got him into the car, dragging him by the arm. It was a drive of maybe 45 min and then they took a left turn to a cemetery. To Benny, all the graves were the same and he hadn’t known this man. He could appreciate what he had given to Beth, but he wasn’t grieving. So, he just staid back and waited, cigarette in hand, until the two women came back. Beth looked a bit debauched and he suspected that, had she been wearing any makeup, it would’ve been smudged now. After catching him in a hug she got back into the car and they drove back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there we have it! Only one chapter to go now.   
> This is actually my favourite song off the record and maybe my favourite song of all time. Seriously, if you haven't, I implore you, listen to it!  
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
